While Israel isn't the only country to have made headway towards stopping revenge porn — Brazil introduced a bill in October to ban revenge porn after 17-year-old Brazilian Julia Rebecca committed suicide after she discovered a video online of herself having sex — America is painfully behind on passing comprehensive legislation. Though the revenge-porn debate properly kicked off last year, only two states have passed legislation in a move to stop it: New Jersey and California.

It makes it a misdemeanor offense to post revenge porn only if a prosecutor shows that the poster intended to inflict emotional distress, rather than treating the act of posting a sexual photo without consent as an objectively harmful invasion of privacy. And the punishment wouldn’t apply if the subject of the photo took the picture herself, which means it wouldn’t help people whose exes persuaded them to hand over photos as a sign of trust.

It is clear to us that the pace of legislation always lags behind the technical and virtual reality in which we live. This is a law that is a breakthrough both from the legislative standpoint and also from the normative and ethical standpoint. This is a great achievement for the victims of sex crimes.